The wonders of the Internet.

I was looking at my friends list today, and it occurred to me what amazing people I know.

I’m not going to do you all at once- I would find it far too tiring to do you all in one go- but let me just pick DA as an example.

She is fascinating. Intelligent. Artistic. Passionate. Driven.

I hate to reduce her to a stereotype, but as I will never know her well enough to do much more, she is the Sigourney Weaver character in Ghostbusters to me. She is Dana to my Venkmann. (only she would know whether or not- and how often- she transforms into a Demon.)

I would NEVER in real life be able to meet and associate with such a fascinating human being in the real world. I am just not interesting enough myself.

But here…I can be the person I imagine myself to be, with people I want to attract to myself- in just the kind of world I desire.

That’s what the Internet does for me.

What about you??

Brain Tumouresque.

There has been a lot of death in the family lately.

We have already established that.

I told someone yesterday I was concerned for my mother- but was NOT afraid of death for myself.

I went as far as to say…basically…I didn’t give a shit about death.

I was ready for it.

The typical macho bullshit some men crap on with occasionally.

Even as I said it…I began to have doubts.

But I dismissed them.

These doubts must have been legitimate.

I dreamt last night I was in a surgery, waiting for some tests to come through.

Of course there were the usual problems with the tests not coming out right, no staff around to talk to, etc…you know how hospitals run. (if you are lucky enough to live in a country where you don’t have to be RICH to see the inside of one.)

Finally the correct tests came through, and I found someone to talk to about it.

A nurse looked at the tests, and said, ‘we will look at getting a special toilet installed in your home over the next few weeks.’

I was dumbfounded. I asked, ‘why’???

She replied, ‘Because you are going to shit yourself uncontrollably.’

I shat myself uncontrollably for time number one. ‘WHY THE FUCK WOULD I DO THAT??’

‘That’s what people with a Brain Tumour do.’

My heart discourteously stole the Brain Tumour’s inexorable thunder by stopping.

Momentarily.

Then it started up again, with the questions.

‘I have a tumour?' 

‘Yes, didn’t the doctor tell you?’

‘NO!!’  I calmed myself a little, and inquired, ‘Where is it?’

Then it was that guessing game, as I went through all the regions of the cerebellum. ‘warmer…' the nurse murmured tight lipped as I went through all the possibilities. '...warmer…getting warmer…warmer…’

Finally…I was able to establish the tumour was in my left ear.

Then the nurse had a brain wave- pardon the pun;

‘Come with me, we’ll find a Doctor.’

There’s an idea.

So we went looking for a Doctor.

Suddenly, I became seized with panic.

I let the nurse hurry on out of sight, and I went in another direction.

In a fever, I was turning things over in my mind. All the usual Kubler Ross bizzo; ‘why me, what’ll I do, who’ll look after the kids…oh wait, I don’t have any etc…’

I looked down, and found two cigarettes in my hand.

Oh well, why not, I thought. Can’t hurt me now.

But I did not have a lighter.

I found two women on the street smoking, and asked if they had a light.

They looked at me suspiciously as if I might infect them.

I wandered on alone.

Completely and utterly alone in the universe.

Turns out…I DO care.

All the rest is bullshit.

UTTER bullshit.

So much for my alleged aversion to bullshit.

That, too, is bullshit.

Sometimes- we forget who we really are.

And it takes who we really are to remind us…politely.

I woke up…'ah…it was all a dream’.

Thank God.

What? Now I believe in God, too????

Yikes.

The point of all this?

Watch what you say, if you shoot your mouth off thoughtlessly...indiscriminately...like I do.

Your subconscious might have a different opinion.     

Like me, you might actually find…

You value your life more than you think.

Written with love for myself, & my mates.

YOUR DEEPEST DARKEST FEAR...

Last night, I had this dream.

I got up in the morning, and looked at the newspaper.  (It wasn't that free local thing we get down here in the arsehole of the world; it was one of those big city bog rolls.) 

And there on the FRONT COVER- it was announced they had irrefutable proof that my brute of a Father and I were indeed the same person. 

They had it all; facts, figures.

Photographs, statistics, graphs, charts and interviews.

All of it.

For the world to see.

Clearly...this is my deepest darkest fear.

I knew that already.

My job is to get past it to the other side.

Set myself free. Or die trying.

Which is part of the reason I am here.

So...

Why are YOU here?

What praytell is your deepest darkest fear?

What is blocking YOU??

What imprisons YOU from being 'all that you can be'??

Do tell.

Sheepish Shoe Feetish.

OK. Confession time. 

I love looking at women's shoes.

Not a sexual thing...& not necessarily while they are wearing them.

And I DO NOT wear them. (I'd tell you if I did it would be no biggie. I just don't.)

I just reckon some of them are miracles of design. 

(I love all sorts of design...i collect hats, & certain toys, and marvel at the ingenuity of the design.) 

So if i'm in a thrift store..I browse the womens shoes.

Don't buy...just look.

(Altho, every so often, I find a really lovely set for a steal- & for my money, the Italians are the best at making them- & i can't help myself.)

So...if the shoe fits, I guess..

;)  

OK, I wrote this at 2am, so it should be the truth.

I never told a lie at 2 in the morning.

2 in the morning is a lie.

And so am I.

Listen.

I try to keep fairly positive, but the truth is, well…

Let me put it this way; I usually post exactly the way I’m feeling at any given moment.  & people can tell what sort of mood I’m in by what I say.

I know they can; I have heard them say it.

They must care, right?  To even notice?

Then again, if there is one thing people love…it is to catch someone in their insanity.

It’s a victory for their own mental health.

To catch another loon with his pantaloons down is mental money in the bank.

I’m not here to win points…so I will speak freely.

Loons around my ankles.  

I carry a lot of darkness.  

I know that.  Because it is my truth. 

I feel pretty dark most of the time.

People often tell me to lighten up- right around the time they hit the lights and walk out the door. 

And really…who can blame them for walking out on me?

So…

Why So Serious???

It wasn’t just paedophile priests, abusive parents, corrupt cops & fucked up relationships that bent me outta’ shape; it’s more than that.

I think it is the fact that there is so much hate…

& so little love in the word that has cast a pall over my existence.    

Now…is this reality…or simply my perception?

Is there even a distinction between the two??

You see, I have ALWAYS been sensitive; even as a little kid.

When Dad would kick the shit out of Mum…I used to feel it.

Funny that.

Even more than when he would get around to me.

Look…

I can feel cruelty even when it is happening in a foreign land.

I can FEEL it.

I’m not so sure it’s necessarily a bad thing…

But I’m not convinced it’s all that good, either.

It…

just…

IS.

Times have not changed as I have grown old.

People are still cruel to one another…

& I STILL feel it.  

People are STILL kicking the shit out of one another today…in far greater numbers than I ever imagined…and I feel it even MORE now than I did as a child.

Now…

I would LOVE to be positive, think unicorns and rainbows and Zen Koans…

But all I can hear is the sound of one hand slapping.

If someone is suffering out there…

I can feel it.

I really can.

Well, actually- the Buddhists believe life is suffering.

So…what about love?

More suffering.

I have tried love…but love seems to hurt almost as much as hate.

Sometimes more so.

How the hell do they get so confused?

How do WE get so confused?

I have tried to love unconditionally…but frankly? 

I seem to be conditioned against it.

Maybe I should try loving air conditionally.

Even when I try…

To love, I mean…

When I speak of love- people look at me like I’m an insane person. 

Who wants that?

I’m only human. I don’t want to be ostracised.

For trying to love.

Is it really such a foreign notion?

How long will it stay so?

How long do I have to keep wandering about in the darkness?

Where is everybody?

I am getting to the point where I am wondering if it is really even worth going on. 

A man is supposed to live 70 odd years…but I’m getting really tired; & I’m nearly finished now.

I’m tired of all the hate and cruelty in this world.

I can’t even find much love inside myself any more.

And I have really been looking.

No gallstone unturned.

I can’t seem to do it properly.

Let go.

Let love.

??

I have let go.

I have held on.

I have waved my arms about frantically…

Like a boat person bobbing about in the icy cold waters of disillusionment…

& I have tied them behind my back.

I have jumped up and down, and gone placidly amidst the haste.

I have tried…& I have NOT tried.

I have yelled, and whispered.

I have loved…until it came out as hate.

I have hated…until love broke like new dawn.  

And then realised…it was not love at all.

Camouflage. 

I have hated love, and loved hate.

And vice versatile.

I’m not even certain where one ends…& the other begins.

Who measures that?

And how?

How long does it take?

HOW MANY hearts break??

How many careless whispers, or misheard lyrics?

When the heart strings become jangled…what then?

When do we know?

How long do we beat each other up?

How long do we leave each other alone?

How many quiet places until we realise we need each other…& how many madding crowds before we just go away?

The way so few human beings even care about one another…

Hell, I don’t know ME let alone you…

Who am I kidding?

I don’t know shit.

I feel like a truly insane person even clinging to this life raft I call ‘love’ in this vast ocean of ambivalence & unkindness.

I need a miracle. A sign; just one sign to tell me it’s worth going on.

& I need it now…  

NOTHING IS WASTED.

"The greatest waste in the world is the difference between what we are and what we could become." 

Herbster, Ben

Nice one, Herbie.

An even bigger waste, in my view, is worrying TOO MUCH about something like this.

Material such as this- as inspiring as it may be, & as genuine in it's attempt to shock humans from their complacency- can actually cause more suicide than loneliness.

I have been at that brink- & this was the very obsession that put me there.

What I was, and what I could have been.

And the vast chasym between the two.

It almost put me in my grave.

Vonnegut said 'we are here to fart around; never let anyone tell you any different'.

This lets us off the hook- especially those of us who are such perfectionists, obsessively battling to overcompensate for God knows what shortcoming in the past...

To the point where we become paralysed.

I would aim for something in between Vonnegut, and the above quote.

My motto- what finally brought about my recovery- would be, rather...

'We are flawed creatures in an uncertain world, trying to survive with bugger all to go on. Simply do the very best you can, each moment of your life, & NEVER torture yourself over what might have been. This is a slow, painful death. As far as you might feel you have fallen short- you are still a beautiful beautiful creature, in a beautiful beautiful world, & provided you saw ONE SINGLE MOMENT of beauty...

provided you saw a sunset, a sunrise, an infant or a lovely animal -

AND YOU NOTICED IT IN THAT MOMENT IN ALL IT'S MAJESTY...

then your life will have been worthwhile'.

This saved my life, ultimately.

It's not much...but it worked.

& it is from my heart.

A heart that was strong enough to realise that, in the end, NOTHING IS WASTED.

If you simply did your best.

Troller Ball Part 6

The Internet, social networks like FB (is there another?) and Groups like the Boring Group can at times be not unlike the “House on Haunted Hill”. A strange virtual world run by some evil deviant mastermind, where a group of otherwise reasonably functioning human beings are gathered into a spooky house to be tortured for the duration…

The purpose is usually a spurious offer of an amount of money- which pales into insignificance once the task of sheer survival takes precedence.

And then…once the drama has run its course…we find ourselves stuck in a room we can leave at any time…but cannot. Like a Beckett play.

& shut off from the outside world, we can only comment on the reality in that house.

To whatever extent it is able to masquerade as ‘reality’.

More a simulacrum; until we realise it has more in common with reality than we might want to admit. Only it is a heightened reality- a world intensified by the collision of temperaments and mood, opinion and hyperbole, wherein our ‘friendships’ are tested under the conditions & in the comparative anonymity of the medium…

Where real selves emerge…neurosis come to the surface, latent anger and hatred brought to the boil…and we find ourselves under certain circumstances defriending & blocking people for offending our sensibilities and in our righteous indignation…

We commit a kind of ‘virtual murder’.

Where many of us we see no need to work the differences out to a better, more humane conclusion. We just bomb any offenders.

And we soon see that- for all intents and purposes…this world IS the real world.

And we can indeed be little Hitlers.

And when we see our potential in this virtual world…

Things all of a sudden DO matter.

How we act toward others does matter.

I have had to defriend & blocked for sleights to my sensibilities.

In the name of 'security'.

And yet, is it in fact a demonstration of my own Insecurity that I do it?

I actually think defriending and blocking someone who does not agree with you is an act of cowardice.  And to criticise others for doing what I myself do the height of hypocrisy.

And…in the only court in the land- nay the entire world- that matters…

The court of my own conscience…

I find myself guilty.

Faced with my own social shortcomings…

I seek to find out WHY I act this way with people…

And how I could learn to do better.

And this DOES matter.

Who I see in the mirror DOES matter.

How I wish to be remembered DOES matter- because these are REAL people here.

Just because they are online- & we have not seen them in the flesh- does NOT mean they are cartoon characters.

In the game of life, wherein our integrity, our common human decency  is tested…there is much at stake. Which is why such incidents where we fail miserably in our connection with others BURNS so much.

No matter who was at fault…a relationship that fails BURNS.

For is causes us to look at the other person…& when we have finished blaming them…

We must look inside the hardest place of all- our own heart, soul and conscience.

Such incidents show us who we are- who we really are…

How we behave under pressure…

And most importantly of all, what we take of this out into the real world.

Which brings up to the question- who are we online?

Who should we be?

Is who we are in the real world different to whom we are online?

Should it be?

Is there even a difference between online and real world?

I think we play merry hell with who we are.

The truth of who we are.

Should that be worked out prior to our entry?

Or may we figure that out as we go on?

Here- just as in the real world?

Which is why I engaged in this series of blogs in the first place.

To follow the burn of a group that did not want me.

A group that actively encourages us to play a role…

An affectation…

And perhaps it is that that caused the Boring Group offence.

I could NOT be a proper bore. 

The right kind of bore.

I was accused of wearing a mask; which was ironic, because I think closer to the truth, the problem was I was not wearing enough of a mask.

I was veering to close to the truth of my self exploration…

And it was too risky.

Harmful.

After all…is not the TRUTH the most Boring thing of all?

Or perhaps…NOT BORING enough in this particular case?

It is time to go into the minutae of what happened in the Boring Group, to lead up to my expulsion.